


All In A Legacy

by aionimica



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Background Character Death, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Pain, What-If, long awkward car rides, sorta - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-08
Updated: 2017-05-08
Packaged: 2018-10-29 18:17:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10859445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aionimica/pseuds/aionimica
Summary: He remembered her mutter as they took off from the crust of a crumbling planet: “We should have left him down there.”And maybe Rey was right. But Finn was certain of only one thing: Han Solo wouldn’t want his son to die like that.





	All In A Legacy

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by John Boyega’s trivia that he disarmed Adam Driver during the snow fight scene. ‘What If’ that became canon?

“Affirmative Black Leader, we made it off.” Finn leaned back in his seat as the lines of space warped around him and grinned as the pilot laughed on the other end. “Heading for the rendezvouz point. Shouldn’t be too far behind you.”

Poe’s relief rippled through the comm, infecting the entire cockpit of the _Falcon_. “ _Glad to hear it, Finn. You find Rey?_ ”

“Right here,” Rey piped in. She glanced at Finn, curious and intrigued before turning back to the nav coordinates displayed at her fingertips. There was a galaxy in her hand and the numbers to see it all.

“ _Can’t wait to meet you_ ,” Poe said and Finn could hear his smile through the crackles. “ _The whole Resistance is going to have to get in line behind me_.”

“I'll get ready,” Rey said with a grin.

 _“You too Finn, you thought you were famous before? Everyone’s gonna wanna meet the stormtrooper who defected and ran right back to tear the place down._ ”

“I’ll figure a way out of it,” Finn said before clearing his throat. He had to say it now or he would never say it and he had to say it before they reached base. “Poe, I gotta –  We didn’t all make it out. There were some casualties.”

“ _Affirmative_.” There were only three of them that left on the _Falcon_ and Finn was pretty certain that Poe could hear the growls in the background. There wasn’t much left to do but the math but Force did it hurt to say it at all. _“I’ll send word ahead and have the General briefed._ ”

“Thanks man. Also, Poe, we’ve got…” Finn drifted off as he glanced down the hall. He couldn’t see it from here, but back beyond there was a small room and outside sat a mourning Wookie with a bowcaster aimed at the door. “We made it off planet with a prisoner. He’s high ranking First Order.”

“Armitage Hux?”

Finn held back a wave of nausea at his old commander’s name. “No. He’s some sort of religious figure. A Knight of Ren. No other title.” If Rey knew anything else, she was keeping it to herself. All he knew was from that night on Jakku and what he heard on the bridge in the bowels of the base.

“ _Interesting_.” He could hear Poe’s intrigue, the curiosity brimming right there, but while this was a private channel, it wasn’t secure. “ _Any idea of a name?_ ”

The wind left Finn then. The ache that he couldn’t hold back anymore nearly doubled him over. He was used to not having time to mourn, to watch friends be vaped in a second and have to keep moving on. But this loss hit him in a place he didn’t quite expect. He never really knew the man, but the man seemed to have known him and in the end that was what mattered. Han Solo was now ash scattered in the vacuum of space, but the man who held his last words and who drove a lightsaber through his heart was coming home with them.

He said in nearly a whisper, “Did you know that Han and Leia had a son?”

The comm crackled before going silent. He looked to Rey who handled the _Falcon_ with the ease of a girl who’d been flying it her whole life. But just there, waiting under the surface was a fire waiting to consume whatever came near and it burst to light at the mention of the man.

“Do you think–”

The comm crackled to life and Poe’s voice echoed around them. _“I’ll take care of getting you guys into base. Don’t land until you have my word._ ”

“Thanks, “ Finn said.

He could almost imagine Poe shaking his head. “ _I’m not jealous of you, hope you know that.”_

“Have you ever been?” Finn said with what he could manage as a smile.

“ _Every now and then, come to think about it. See you in real time,_ Falcon _. Gold Leader, signing off._ ”

The comm faded back to silence. Rey looked at him from the corner of her eye.

“You don’t agree?” he said lightly, checking their gauges before unbuckling from the seat. Chewie was somewhere in the back, attending to his wounds, both seen and unseen. He didn’t say anything when the three of them stumbled aboard: he just took one look at the prisoner and fell silent. Which considering that he was a Wookie, was a considerable feat.

“It wasn’t my choice,” she said and it wasn’t. She was conveniently unconscious when it all happened, only waking to find Finn staring a blazing lightsaber in his hand and Han Solo’s son bent at his feet.

He still didn’t know how he did it. One moment he was fighting for his life, pulling on every ounce of training and being certain that it wouldn’t be enough and then the next he stood over a broken night with plasma burns on his arms and a disarmed lightsaber at his feet. The rest of that was a blur and by that point Rey woke up and they took him to the _Falcon_. “What would you have done?”

She opened her mouth and he saw that ferocity in her eyes that she once aimed at him. Finn didn’t miss it hadn’t faded since he found her on Starkiller and all too often it was pointed in the direction of their prisoner. He knew her answer though. He remembered her mutter as they took off from the crust of a crumbling planet: “We should have left him down there.”

And maybe she was right. But Finn was certain of only one thing: Han Solo wouldn’t want his son to die like that.

Kriffing hell when did he get so sentimental. “Trust me, Rey,” he tried to say lightly. “I know what I’m doing.”

Rey looked up to him and he saw her try to listen, to trust him. But that anger still boiled beneath.  “Do you?” she asked.

“Yes,” Finn said and hoped that he was telling the truth.

                                                         ~

The _Falcon_ was not set up to transport prisoners and certainly not Force-capable ones. The store room was dark, but he was impossible to miss. The man was tall, even as he knelt down, shackled to the hull, his presence still overflowed and Finn did his best to not feel very small.

“This was a mistake,” the knight said quietly, his voice carried on a timbre nearly lost in the lull of the Falcon. “Bringing me here. You’re going to regret it.”

Finn stopped and turned around. “Maybe. Maybe leaving you to die on a shattered out husk of a planet would have been kinder. But guess what? I’m not really feeling kind today.” He looked back towards the cockpit before taking a step closer. “Han Solo was a friend of mine and this ship means something to me, so I can only imagine that it does for you.”

The knight looked away. Finn didn’t stop. “And you can do whatever you want to this room, but some things run deep and something tells me that no matter how much you want to, you’re not going to rip this ship out of hyperspace, no matter how much you don’t want to be here. Am I right?”

Han Solo’s son looked away, a mad tick pulling at the corner of his jaw, but said nothing at all.

Fine. “I’ll take that as an affirmative.”

He knelt at the knight’s side and rechecked the buckles and chains that held him to the Falcon’s hull. Not that it would do much if he actually tried to escape. Though Luke’s lightsaber rested in Rey’s bag and the knight’s saber was stowed somewhere safe and far away, it didn’t give Finn that much peace of mind. It wasn’t easy to forget what happened on Jakku and what those hands did to a blaster bolt. Finn decided he never wanted to be this close to them again.

Kriff, they were going to have a lot to explain when they landed.

“What do I call you?” he asked when he stood. The knight didn’t look up. “Hey.” The word shattered against him, pulling the him back from wherever pit he threw himself into.

Slowly he looked up but his eyes never met Finn’s. “Whatever you want.”

“Fine,” Finn said. He looked back and pondered for a moment, his hands hovering. He expected the knight to be older, so much older, but they weren’t that far apart in years. The knight’s face was soft instead of grizzled and worn or scarred from head to toe, but his eyes were old and pulled with repeated agony. Finn thought on that for a moment, but then again, he expected a lot of things to be different. “We come out of hyperspace in ten hours, Ben.”

The knight looked up, eyes wide, hands clenched and shaking at his side. A tempest trapped, fighting against restraints and as Finn turned to leave, the air around him grew tight and thin. It was only when the door palmed shut and locked into place that the shouts began behind him.


End file.
